Page:The family kitchen gardener - containing plain and accurate descriptions of all the different species and varieties of culinary vegetables (IA familykitchengar56buis).pdf/169

 Hagloe Crab.—A celebrated fruit for early use, either for cider or the kitchen. It is a strong grower and an abundant bearer. Fruit medium size, flat, greenish-yellow streaked with red. Flesh soft, juicy, with a rich flavor. Ripe in August and September.

Siberian Crab.—This variety is cultivated exclusively for preserving, being very small, with a clear, waxy skin, either Yellow or Red, there being two varieties. The Red makes a very ornamental tree when loaded with its brilliant fruit, being like so many pendant garnets.

.—The best soil for the Apple is that of a loamy, friable nature, avoiding sand and clay, in either of which this tree is short-lived. The finest trees and orchards are planted on a deep, sandy loam, either on a dry bottom or having a good descent for carrying off the water. It is not our purpose to go into an elaborate detail of the management of an orchard; that would only confuse and mystify; our aim is to state only what is essential, and to do it with brevity and precision There is no country that possesses greater advantages of climate for fruit culture than the United States; yet, as we have stated, we see fine young trees left to the mercy of the elements without any support; we see no disposition to arrange or form the head; no hand to thin out the crops; all, all is left to nature; even the soil has no annual or tri-annual material given to keep it in a state to yield a regular and continued crop. The trees, in consequence, get distorted, the limbs broken down with their harvest to their lazy lords; and then commences the “besom of destruction,” to annihilate their existence, with saw and axe to cut off their broken branches; disease takes hold of the tree, and it comes to a premature old age, having not lived half its days. Such has been the fate of many an orchard, and such is the treatment most frequently pursued in the present day. The first object of attention in planting an orchard, ought to be to have the ground well ploughed, deep—